Writer-director Ruairi Robinson released last week a proof-of-concept short titled THE LEVIATHAN for a science fiction movie idea he had. The short focuses on a futuristic group of hunters trying to harpoon a space whale, which I assume is on another planet.
He would eventually meet with a slew of producers and industry people about developing the project into a feature film.
Deadline now reports it’s caught the attention of both Simon Kinberg (Star Wars, X-Men, Fantastic Four) and Neill Blomkamp who will act as producers on a feature version of the short, Simon acting as lead and Neill as executive. The two became friendly after previously working together on Elysium and Chappie.
They are also hinting that because of 20th Century Fox’s first-look deal with Kinberg the project could get major studio backing. It doesn’t hurt that Blomkamp is about to setup shop over at Fox for Alien 5, a move like this could mean even more science fiction coming from Fox in the future.
Simon is currently developing both X-Men/Fantastic Four films for Fox and Star Wars film/television projects for Lucasfilm, as writer and producer.
We already know that Fox is actively pursuing a huge slate of science fiction projects and creating a new original sci-fi franchise post-Avatar might be too good to pass-up.
Ruairi had been originally hired by Warner Bros. to direct their Akira adaptation only to exit over creative differences. After watching the short you sort of have to question why WB didn’t try to keep him on-board as the director, as it’s starting to look like a huge mistake to not have him make Akira.
Robinson would eventually go-on to make his feature debut with the sci-fi horror thriller The Last Days On Mars, which actually had some help from Weta Workshop. It’s a great film not many people know about and is current streaming on Netflix.
SOURCE: DEADLINE